The flooding in Cumbria came at a bad time for those who make their living hyping global warming. Pretty much everyone who might have wanted to listen to their message was focused on the global climate talks in Paris and far too busy to worry about what was happening in Carlisle and Keswick.
But that hasn’t stopped a few people from trying to take advantage. The Met Office’s chief scientist Julia Slingo was unable to resist the temptation to issue a statement linking the floods to climate change. This was handy for Liz Truss, the minister in the firing line for the failure of the flood defences, who repeated the claims yesterday.
Slingo might have been expected to exercise a bit of caution here. When the Met Office published its inquiry into the 2013/14 floods, she was much criticised for saying that ‘all the evidence’ pointed to a link to climate, when the underlying report said there was ‘no definitive answer’ on this question.
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